where do you fall on that? >> guest: i would love for athletes today to read the book, because there was something about sugar ray robinson that was very humbling. if he heard somebody he would go to the locker room to see how that person was doing. if he hit somebody in the ring and knocked out their mouthpiece he would pick it up. i mean, he was a very gracious fighter, and he cared about what the public thought about athletes. he really did. and i think just the way he carried himself could really teach athletes -- >> host: he showed it, he didn't say it.

..

>> day q4 right teeing it. >> thank you very much. >> the book is called sweet thunder. you need to buy it and by five copies to give your friends will teach you something bad about just boxing but about this country. >> it is a delight for me to

distinguish our most distinguished born and raised and dedicated to this community. horse went to miami high and university of florida then harvard law school and then came back. after years of the florida legislature he went on to move our governor for two terms, our senator three terms and in all cases a distinguished career and what of the few people in the national legislature that people from both sides of the aisle respected and worked with. so he has had that distinguish career. he is still called on by the legislature in terms of committees dealing with the weapons of mass destruction and one on the financial crisis. but the most important thing particularly with what you will hear about today, a deal with his interaction

with people and with his commitment to the democratic process and his belief that everybody has to participate. by the way, bob listens to everybody. every 3 feet he stops to talk to somebody else and gets out a notebook to write down what they have to say. [laughter] 365 days where he works as a different occupation one day to see how the average person was doing. this is on a new career to try to get people to get involved in the political process. solo the things he does and how he works i the he will do even better now than our

representitive and five like to introduce bob graham. [applause] >> thank you let me say something about the gentleman you just heard from, his comments are not indicative of his true personality. he was a longtime president of this educational institution the was not only thought of as great but also the macarthur foundation to receive a genius award. so you a of are impressed by a certified genius. [applause] has made many kinds of solutions to this community and his wife who happens to be my wife's best friend is also probably the most

distinguished historian of southern florida. first, i thank you for being here. this is one of the most important cultural events in the light of our community. it is the opportunity for people who care about ideas and books to come together with some recent ratings but also to share your values and thoughts. lee sometimes think people live in miami are only interested in the beach and the sun but many fellow citizens that are engaged in the ideas and actions of the moment. that is the summary of the book i will be talking about.

but before i start on that the first will be geography and the sec and will be biography. how many of you have been to south beach. [laughter] raise your hand. you did very well. [applause] now we come to the biography. how many of you know barbara? smaller, but not insignificant. she is why there is a south beach today. let me tell you this story. south beach was developed in the period after world war i and became a major national and international tourist destination. by the 1970's it was falling onto hard times. disney was constructed and

many people referred to as the i encourage a backup tourist from moving further south. they felt miami beach had become an antiquated place. frankly, they thought there were too many elderly people that lived there and as i celebrated my 73rd birthday, i take great offense and it was no longer attractive for tourism. in 1976, the city government of miami beach announced a plan to convert miami beach, protector the south beach into a new international research. they took their ideas from disney world a part of this would be disney world south. one of the consequences was that much of south beach would be leveled in order to create a platform for this new destination.

there was much applause for this plan and it appeared to have the support of the economic and political power structure not only of miami beach but much of florida. one woman stepped forward her or her name was barbara. she came from a family that had influenced the art deco movement. art deco was the application of industrial design to a nine industrial setting including architecture but also every day appliances. if you go to the museum on the south beach you will see a good example of the extent of art deco influence particulaparticula rly in the thirties and forties. she came out of that and had a knowledge and a passion for that form of design. second, her recently

deceased husband had been a professor of marketing. they had shared ideas about how do you persuade and influence people particularly in areas of consumer choice? with those two elements she said you are making a big mistake. the future of south beach will not be to replicate mickey mouse part of the future of south beach is going to be to save this special architecture to use the sale of the romance and a nostalgic that for many americans associate with south beach. i am going to lead the effort to overcome all of these groups eradicating its destruction. and three years, based on knowledge of and ability to influence key decision

makers, in miami beach, dade county, florida and washington, south beach became the first national historic district that commenced in the 20th century in the united states of america. a very audacious objective with brilliantly executed jeans. she then spent the rest of her life trying to convince the local governments miami-dade county and miami beach to develop the ordinances and other necessary legal mechanisms to protect this a national historic district. unfortunately she died three years before the full realization of her ever. but now there is a st. i

believe it is tenth st. which is named for barber. eyesight her because she is the kind of person and that i believe all americans can be if they have a sufficient amount of internal self-confidence and a willingness to acquire the competencies' to be an effective citizen. this book, it "america the owner's manual" is devoted to preparing all americans for active and effective and honorable citizenship. i have defined and in this is totally my doing, but what are the 10 essentials skills of effective citizenship? barbara had most of those skills.

she had the skills through her experience in marketing with a knowing the customer and how to influence the customer because of her background and art deco she had already done the research as to why this was an important part of american culture which deserves to be protected and enhanced. barbara unfortunately is the example which is becoming lee -- becoming increasingly rare in america. those of you who are my generation and when generation younger have lived there a period of massive decline in citizenship in america. by almost any indicator basics like

voting, volunteering, in joining organizations with a civic objective, working with your neighbors to sell their local problem, americans today are dramatically less likely to do any of those they and they did two generations ago. i put a lot of that blame on several institutions. one of those is our educational institution. i graduated from miami senior high school in 1955. i had went to high alia elementary and junior high. between that time i took six of was typical for americans of my generation. three, one-year courses include a basic introduction or you learn to analyze issues and discussed them intelligently and how to be

a citizen and skills of effective citizenship. in the spring of this year my granddaughter graduated from a public school in tallahassee and had also taken the amount of civics which is typical across the country today. she had taken one semester. not the three full years that i have had but one semester. what she had taken is what i call spectator six. if any of you and vortec and music appreciation for art appreciation and, from my experience, you learn to appreciate beethoven's ninth symphony better but you do not learn to play any of the instruments that unnecessary to produce beethoven's ninth. that is what we're doing in little civics being taught

today we're training young people to be spectators and sit in this eight -- stands and watch democracy but none of the skills required to be an active participant in our democracy. this book was written for a general audience but with a particular focus on high school and college students. the publishers is a college press and it has marketed the book and promoted the book primarily to the collegiate audience and i am modest enough to say we're doing quite well. and i think there are a number of evidence of the fact we have not given adequate attention to sedition ship in america. we saw some of it with the

issues we sought to provide health care for all americans it turned into a screaming match often with information that had no factual basis being shouted out as if biblical truth. and the people in the audience frequently not having the analytical skills to understand what was proof and what was shouting fantasy. we also have seen a decline in people's willingness to participate in groups that have been dedicated to effective citizenship. one of the other case studies and the book is about another woman who lived on the other side of the country. her name was candice. another biography test. anybody here know who can this was?

>> she would say mother and housewife in sacramento california and had to twin daughters who were 14 and one of her twins was killed by a drunk driver candace grieved as any mother would but she decided she would do more than just grieve. she would make a difference. with a small group of her neighbors in her neighborhood and sacramento they put together an organization when of the most significant things they did was to select a name for the organization. the name that they selected stated not only the objective, but also inferred what the problem was. the name is mothers against

drunk driving. the initial members were all mothers. not all had suffered as candace had done but they could empathize with a mother who have lost a child to a drunk driver. but the title inferred, they could have that selected california against drunk driving but they selected the word mother. first, because it is one of the most the motive words in that english language. gs second because it pointed to the fact that drunk driving was overwhelmingly a masculine defense. most truckdrivers then and now are men. the organizations that are responsible to govern drunk driving from police to prosecutors to the court system are overwhelmingly

men and in 1978 there's the attitude that drunk driving was not that serious bird review were a prosecutor, it was not typically at the top of the list of things you would spend a lot of time on. in our popular culture, movies of that era depicted drunks as a source of humor who fell out of their car door on the street. people laughed. there were not treated as murderers and 1978 had killed 25,000 americans. with candace and daughter one of them. she launched the effort and in less than 10 years had every state in the nation adopt what she considered to be the most -- two most important things to raise the age from 18 to 21 a disproportionate number of drunk drivers were in that age group and to reduce the

level of alcohol in your bloodstream necessary to define a person as drug. it is now 0.'08 percent of your blood being on call call -- of call. she did this by getting a person who was not a particular advocate of a strong federal government of social policy and had run on a platform that government was not the solution but the problem. that person was ronald reagan. candace went to school on ronald reagan and how could she convince him to support national legislation that would impose these standards and might of his professed opposition to a big national government? what she found was beyond

the president's political philosophy, he had a great weakness for children. if you read his biography come on many occasions if a child wrote the president a letter and described as some problem the child was having in their family or school or neighborhood, he would not only write them back but played sinned a small check to help them to do whatever they were unable to do. when she got her 15 minutes with ronald reagan, she did not talk about the theory or the specifics of law changes, she talked about children and how they were being disproportionately slaughtered because of this. and with that ronald reagan turned to his chief of staff and said i know this may sound out of character for

my supporters but i will help that lady accomplish our objective. there was an example of a woman who made a difference because she was willing to acquire the competencies necessary to do so. i think in order to lift ourselves out of this sorry state of citizenship we need to do a number of things. we need to regenerate radio, television and, in a very difficult time and in that difficult time the first things that typically goes is the local news coverage which is exactly the news coverage that alerts citizens to problems in their community. if you don't know there's a

problem in the schools of miami-dade county, you're not likely to become a civic activist to try to resolve the problem. another area our political parties. used to me they start as a principal responsibility to encourage citizenship. ellis island for the republican and democratic party as people made their first taps into the united states, there were also being asked to begin the process to become citizens and hopefully joined the party that was soliciting them and become loyal supporters. but there also survey a broader national interest. today political parties say the only people we want to show up to vote is the base that we're confident will vote for our candidates and we will actively discourage

other people from appearing and unfortunately this is a particular problem and florida and some of you around and 2000 had a good case study of how that worked, but i think most of the challenges are directed toward education. we need to increase not only the amount of citizenship preparation but the quality of citizenship preparation with a much greater emphasis to prepare people to be able to active and engaged since. having an experience i have over 30 years ago with a state legislature. we're holding our pre-legislative hearings around the school and this particular day we're at the high-school and

jacksonville. no family relationships for this wonderful campus. when students are asked thereby to tell us anything they came in large numbers and had a complaint that probably many of you experienced during your school years and that was bad food in the cafeteria. i was not surprised the food was bad but i was surprised they came to the state of the legislature to get a solution. i said i read the first people that you talk to? no. you are third. that made me feel better they had exhausted our most obvious efforts and had turned to was in despair. who was number one and number two? #1 was a man who was the

mayor of of the jacksonville and he said i agree the food is probably bad but it is not a responsibility as the mayor. the next person was the sheriff of duval county. [laughter] u.s said the food is no doubt bad but it is not criminal and it is not my responsibility. and we were the third. i told that story a few weeks later to a group of civics teachers in miami-dade and i sense something is bad wrong when a student gets almost two graduation high school and things the mayor, the share for state legislature is the place to go for greasy pizza on friday. i thought i would get a sympathetic hearing but to the contrary one teacher is a friend of mine said i am sick to death of politicians who do not know what the hell they're talking about

telling us how to do our profession and the only way you can learn what is really going on is to get into the classroom to see what it is like. i thought she was thinking a couple of hours on tuesday afternoon but i found out she had a different idea when she called me and said i worked it out to. you are to come to the high-school on the day after labor day and you'll be teaching 12th grade civics for the next 18 weeks. [laughter] that took me back but i figured i have made a commitment and i was going to keep it. one of the smarter things i did is to find a young civics teacher who shared some of my ideas to work

with me and we coach taught and the book is dedicated to that six teacher at the high school. we develop day curriculum around the question what does this is indeed to know to make government work for them? and we were taught that for 18 weeks ended the introduction i talk about what that experience was like. 30 years later i had retired from the senate and had the opportunity to go to harvard to the kennedy school of government as a senior fellow and you are expected at harvard the only people who teach our members of the faculty. anybody else of their title they can inspire, direct, our group, we said. i lead a class of

undergraduates in the same curriculum what does a citizen need to know? the harvard undergraduates of 2005 were about as a victory aliterate as the high school students and 1974. [laughter] while i was there several faculty members and a projector they a very well known sociologists named bob putnam would written a book called bowling alone which details the decline of americans' willingness to doing any kind of organization, a bowling league gore serve rick -- civic organization encourage me to write this as a book and you are now the victims of that recommendation. i hope this will make a contribution to turning our

big institutions political parties and others toward a recognition of a decline in our citizenship and the consequences we pay for the decline and we don't have a lot of time left to reverse this. there is a national report card issued each year by the national conference on citizenship and a similar reports are listed on the state of florida the conference report indicates that in these difficult economic times when some thought it would be a renewal of citizenship has people want to work together to get through difficulties, in fact, as has been the case of other economic declines and has contributed to an acceleration. 72 percent of americans said

in the 2009 poll that they are less likely to volunteer or less likely to join an organization because of the economic conditions and in celerity and focus they have to give to their own families survival than they had two or three years earlier and better economic times. report from florida the report of the 50 states plus the district of columbia, the average of all of those indicators ranked as 46 out of 51 political entities. so we and florida have a particular challenge to stimulate a higher level of citizenship and in a state which is as mobile change sheen growing as florida has

been the last several decades we need to have a high-level of citizenship to bring the new floridians into our communities as effective citizens and direct their energies to those things that will make this a better place to live. one of the things that came out of the studies is people like you, people who were readers, people who had shown a prior history of interest in the issues of their community were much more likely to be a good citizen and purchase abating citizen than those who didn't sell in many ways i am speaking to the choir this afternoon and i will ask each of view not only to continue what i trust are your good patterns of citizenship but to be part of an army of americans two

rinker rich others, particularly younger americans to do likewise. this democracy was never intended to be a spectator sport. never an activity limited to a few be the spirit of democracy by its nature is participatory and available to all americans who are willing to pay the price of developing the competencies' and self-confidence to be effective citizens. thank you. [applause] question and this? >> last week i went to a county commission meeting and the commissioner was lying and nobody said

anything. i was recalling how was going to come see you and you were on the colbert show and nancy pelosi have the same problem with the cia saying they told her what was going on about the iraq war but she said no. they did not tell me and you also concurred with her but i never heard in a news she was cleared. everybody says nancy pelosi, but i wonder if you had any comments about what to do when they lie? >> you need to start before the lightyear shows that. my dad was in the dairy business and always carry a notebook around so if you saw a sick cow or broken fence or a truck that needed to be repaired he would write it down and be sure it

was followed up. i have been following that trade of my dad for most of my adult life. and the particular instance instance, had members of the intelligence committee and nancy was the ranking democrat and i was the chairman was briefed on some of the activities such as torture, warrantless wiretaps and i was pretty sure i had been briefed. so when the statement was made that nancy had been and i had been, i asked for what were the dates when these briefings took place? i was given for dates all of which and 2002. my notebooks are stored at a

library at the university of florida. i call the library and and i said:notebooks for those four dates. as it turned out come on three of the four, there was no briefing held on any subject and on the fourth date, there was a briefing held but it is held under circumstances a little bit like inside baseball the staff for present and these were supposed to be highly classified briefings where staff not would not normally have been present which led me to believe that three of the four meetings never took place and one of the meetings which did was not on the subject that was alleged to be. when i gave them that information come i have not gotten another call from the cia since then. [applause] so do not wait until wire

shows up. use a spiral notebooks you can write it down and have your own record. >> thank you for being here. i live up the road and hollywood florida and i wrote a book called hollywood gamblers about the unsolved murder of the former founder of miami's of spark a wish your experience of the iraq war and the buildup? we know there was no weapons of mass destruction and no connection between al qaeda and sadam hussain. could you comment on your experience and how that may relate to our current conflict in afghanistan? >> i was chairman of the intelligence committee at this time and beginning in the late part of 2001 with our counterparts in the house we launched a congressional inquiry into

9/11 that is the all consuming through the summer of 2002. at that point* it became obvious the administration was starting to sound the drumbeat for a war in iraq. the president had made a highly publicized speech and a vice president was speaking before every group that would invite him to say bad things about sadam hussain and so we put things to the side for three weeks and held a series of closed-door sessions on the situation in iraq. the head of the cia was george tenet and he presented us with a very thick book. it was of the places in iraq for weapons of mass destruction were either being stored or produce. there were 550 sites in this

book and the book had satellite photos common ground level photos of what the front door look like and the address of the most of the 550 places. i was stunned with the amount of information that we had on sadam hussain weapons of mass destruction so i asked mr. tenet, where do we get all of this information? his answer is from the exile. that set off a couple of bells for me. number one, i knew most of the exiles have left iraq 10 years or more before 2002. second, i knew those would come back who wanted to resume a position of power and influence and smart enough to understand the only way they would get into

power is from following a u.s. tank into baghdad. they had a tremendous conflict of interest. the second question was who did be have on the ground that was responsible directly to the united states of america to verify this information? if we remove street addresses and have pictures, somebody should look in the window are not on the door to see what is on the other side. the answer was how many people did united states have been a country of 30 million people to verify the 550 identified places? o. we were on this group of higher the conflicted exiles. that is all i needed to hear to have serious doubts or validity of this information on which we ultimately went to war with disastrous

consequences. one of which is we still today are having a hard time convincing much of the rest of the world when we say something, that it is to be believed. >> thank you for your service. a lot of people seem very disturbed that our government does not work much or work well whether because of the massive fund-raising required to turn on the television to see the house vote on health care and they had to spend a couple of hours to listen to veitch representitive get up and make a speech for the sake of the record for people back home. in addition if people are trying to get into see a government that seems broken and does not work very well well, they're sentenced and

on top of that asking about "the new york times" max wrangle said he is our right about the existence of that but most of the newspapers of the country and if they go down people will again involve so in terms of the larger picture of how the system does not seem to be working and the decline of the press, what are your comments? >> what i have been discussing the decline in citizenship plays a direct role in the decline of our governmental institutions. if people don't have basic knowledge and understanding of how the institutions work and if they don't feel they are personally capable of influencing those institutions they are likely to be cynical but there is also an enormous increase in the partisanship and our

government in january 87 if i could use a football analogy would say one-third of the hon 100 senators played the game inside the 40-yard line. a little left over rate of center but could communicate. john chafee from rhode island and john danforth from missouri where good examples of people you could talk to and reason but today instead of 33 i doubt there are 15 and that category and most of the movement is into the end zone. and things of happen in the institution with the advent of what i would call reapportionment on steroids

we ended up with a system where 90% of the members of the house of representatives are vulnerable to attack in a general election. the only way they could be deposed is if they are far enough to the left of the democrat or republican and to avoid an opponent in the primary purpose of that condition does not encourage people to seek out ways to be more compatible and compromising in trying to find a reasonable center. those are all contributors to what clearly is a system that is in distress. >> [applause] one of the things that you said would help the bill of citizenship and create more

participatory is journalist i happen one for many years and it is frustrating for us as much as it is 4v spectators and cynics among us because i feel very adamant about the things that you say and i see it and anybody watches jay leno for people who do not know who the vice president is, what is a journalist do when half of the newspaper's lay everybody off. i have a column in two different papers with humor i try to bring up the good things because i think that is what people need to hear today get examples. but what do you do was a journalist one 90% of the doors are closed? >> the question has no easy answer but the particular concern i had that

mr. frankel talked about shortly before we started and that is local news is reduced. there is one encouraging sign in the last national survey of citizenship fact those citizens who described themselves as being significant users of social networking, facebook, a twitter, a logger or reader common they were more likely to also be actively involved in their communities and people who were not active social communicators. i found that to be a little counter intuitive i thought maybe people isolated themselves with there ipod and apple computer and did

not come out of the door to talk to people. but that statistically it is not the case. some may be the answer will be to find a new business model to support quality journalism and that may be more of the electronic form in the traditional print on paper journalism. >> diaz seeing a new investigation into the facts of 9/11 is necessary and light of all of the facts that have come up over the last eight years namely there were explosives that pulverize the skyscrapers in 10 seconds, no plane debris was found at the pentagon and many other contradictions and inconsistencies and lies on the part of the government and also where real on the morning of 9/11?

three meeting with the chief of pakistan a of a isi id that is the cia? who had recently given 100 grand to the fall guy atta. even the current administration news that lie to accelerate afghanistan and we will frame up cull the sheik muhammed and a trial in new york in the near future. >> >> let me talk about my culinary issues. august 2001 was several other members of the intelligence committee we had gone to pakistan and our host while we were there was the head of the pakistani intelligence service that is called the i s i and when we told him if he came to the united states we would like

to reciprocate and it turned out he came to the united states and on september 11 was having breakfast in the office of the chairman of the house intelligence committee to which are was invited to. it was there that we learned what was going on in new york. the statements that this man had been a fun a letter of funds to atta i heard but have seen no substantiation. it is a rumor to my chairs macbeth has not been substantiated. there are unanswered questions about 9/11 and there are. and fact i will extend an invitation to you if mitch caplan is willing to give me an invitation to my next book project which is a

novel about some of the unanswered questions of 9/11. and which i had intended to write as a nonfiction book but because so much of the information is still classified, it could not be written. so i am rite aid with slight fictional modifications as a novel. i hope before my life expectancy expires, i will finish it and the market on your calendar 2011. [applause] >> senator graham i have a question and observation. it seems in my humble

opinion there is a change in the sense of community that south florida is always thought of as being a chance yet committed the and when you add that to the melting pot of cultures of the folks that are hear that may have contributed to a lack of civic involvement and with that in mind is that a contributory factor and what steps can we take as individual citizens to remedy the situation? >> yes. i think the most immediate place to start is in our schools, colleges and universities to reverse the decline in net civic understanding of the next generation. how to do it with the older generation in particular with the generation which moves at or near retirement?

there was a wonderful editor of the now defunct miami news which used to be the afternoon paper here named bill bags if you have been to the southern tip of key biscayne and the state park is called the bill begs park because if you want to learn about florida the place to learn it is in on the obituary page. on the obituary page you will see what he calls the cincinnati syndrome is that john smith was born 1925 in cincinnati after world war ii john smith as a young man moved to miami beach. jon smith established his family, business and active in the civic life on and

miami beach said the john smith died on wednesday. the funeral will be held on monday and on tuesday the body will be returned to cincinnati for burial part of the message being that so many people live here frequently for long periods of time but psychologically the commitment is still two the previous home. if somebody here has the answer to the question would as the vaccine to give to people as they come from cincinnati so they will recognize they are now in a new plays, and exciting place that is worthy of their commitment and efforts, i would like to talk with you and take you to a pharmaceutical companies though they could take your invention and

produce it in mass quantities think you. [applause] >> hello senator graham. in 1072 iran for class president and lost. >> what was this? >> north miami beach. two years later i was at miami-dade north professor vice dean invited me to work on the state senate campaign. i was a neophyte delaying i knew is that he had property and a beautiful wife and two attractive daughters. i went to work on the campaign and you gave me title as assistant director of communications and other lot about politics and you taught by example and i went on to work on additional

campaigns from dukakis to bloomberg no matter what you read about, a civic responsibility you were the best teacher that i ever had. [applause] >> thank you. one less than they you are taught is not to let the question point* it go on to longer you will get to the ultimate question that you hope is never asked and this gentleman just passed it. i am sorry. that is a joke. [laughter] >> day q4 coming out today. i know you are encouraging responsibility and involvement of government at all levels but it especially in south florida we look at public officials and there seems to be case after case of corruption reporting about commissioners under investigation and we have public officials in broward

county this is at the local level and international level and people look at government to see that it attracts people who see it as personal gain rather than public service. how do changes system like that where people would be encouraged to get involved? >> the situation we have seen in the south florida is not unique. i was in san diego which is a place i had grown up thinking of being almost a model community and in the recent years they have flown into the same corruption pet to that we are facing in this community. parts of it is a function of what we were talking to rotor the year which is the mobility of the transitory nature of the population and people who do not frequently know the candidates they are

approaching four and they can be persuaded to vote for someone who is clint and attractive on television but may not how much moral foundation and underneath. again, that goes back to journalists that play a key role in giving this is a sense the information that they can try to sort that out. investigative journalism is important is that it what keeps public officials on their toes. if you think nobody cares what you will do and nobody will report what you will do it creates an environment that can be addictive to inappropriate behavior. third, we have to encourage more good people to feel that they have a civic

responsibility of public service. maybe not an elected office or serving on a committee of your community or other volunteer capacity, but involvement of good people is a powerful anecdote to success by less than a good people. [applause] . .